


there is nothing more than this

by thegeneralgirl



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Time Travel, no context just crying and hugging, pure self-indulgent nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 03:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13516083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeneralgirl/pseuds/thegeneralgirl
Summary: At 27, Marinette knew the aphorisms lied:better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all,time heals all wounds,it gets better, move on, move on.One day, she gets another chance.





	there is nothing more than this

“Would you change anything?”

  
  
Marinette smiles down at her goddaughter, at the old bracelet cupped reverently in her small hands. The blue and yellow stones are worn with time and the thousands of moments that Marinette has sought its comfort.  
  
  
“Not you,” she finally replies. _I would change everything but you_.

 

*

 

The shriek of the truck slamming into the parked cars on the side of the road sounds like the end of the world. Marinette is on the other side of the street, but when the trailer bursts into flames she can still feel the heat as if she is right beside it.

In the sudden panic, no one else notices the person trapped between the rear of the truck and another car.

Marinette’s running across the street before she has time to think, before the ruined door of the semi can creak off its hinges—her earlobes might be empty, she might not be as fast, or as strong, but that doesn’t matter, she just has to be _fast enough_ —

 

*

 

The man’s sob of relief as she’d pulled him free, the look on his face had been worth it even as the darkness and the crushing pain rises up to seize her.

 

  
Before she loses herself to the black, Marinette thinks she can feel something soft flutter to rest on her ruined cheek. Red: not like fire, but like a precious memory from years ago.

 

*

 

Marinette wakes up.

 

It’s something that she’d never expected to do again, but she does, with nothing more but a dull ache in her bones and crushing nausea. The light is blinding, and she struggles to open her eyes.

 

Maybe the hospital? she thinks, a tiny corner of her heart sinking in disappointment ( _maman, maman, i promise i’m better please don’t cry i would never leave you)._

 

She tries to sit up, the uncomfortable hospital bed digging into her back, but her body refuses to cooperate, and it’s another minute before she finally manages to open her eyes.

 

A cloudless blue sky stretches above her.

 

“Ladybug!”

 

A cloudless blue sky stretches above her, and it’s not a hard regulation mattress against her back but the rough concrete of a Parisian roof. _This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real_ —

 

“Ladybug! Are you okay?”

 

She’d closed her eyes again, because the voice— _much loved, had been growing dimmer by the day as the years stretched on_ —is right above her now, and gentle hands are taking her by the shoulders, are helping her up—

 

Chat Noir yelps in surprise as Marinette throws herself bodily at him—

 

_this isn’t real this isn’t real this isn’t real please god please let this be real!_

 

—but he catches her, as he’d always done, as he always does and Marinette is sobbing, her hands frantically running over the smooth leather suit, over the contours of his face and she feels her heart breaking all over again when she realizes how much she’d forgotten. How could she have forgotten the green of his eyes? How could she have forgotten the way the sun lit his hair on fire or the quirk of his eyebrows or the way he blushed?

 

“Buginette?”

 

He’d called her _lovebug_ by the end, and she’d stammered and tried to pretend that it hadn’t made her hot and happy all over. _Later_ , she’d reasoned, there’d be time for it all later, and look where that had left them?

 

Chat is blushing furiously by now, the red of his face spreading all the way down the collar of his suit. Marinette almost feels sorry for him, but she can’t find it in herself to give him a reprieve. He’s holding her by the elbows, gentle even in his confusion, and the familiarity of the action sets Marinette off all over again. She dives into his chest, seeking reassurance in the hollow between his neck and his shoulder, burying herself in his warmth as she pulls him even closer, her arms clasped impossibly tight behind his back.

 

She’s home, for the first time in nine years. She feels safe, for the first time since they’d last bumped fists for luck.

 

Chat lets her hold him, lets her drip all over his suit. Marinette thinks that she must have died after all, because this is as close to a heaven as she thinks she’ll ever get: the rooftops of her city, a summer sky stretching overhead forever, and Chat Noir—her partner, her other half—within her reach.  

 

She finally manages to pull away just far enough to look Chat in the eyes, her hands sliding to rest between them. He’s shaking too, and to her surprise her tears are mirrored on his face. He’s so young (fifteen? sixteen?), and Marinette feels the hot sickness of losing him rise all over again.

 

 _Not this time,_ she vows. _Not this time, never again, never ever ever—_

 

“My lady,” Chat breathes, as they tip their foreheads together. He doesn’t understand, he can’t understand, but Marinette does, and she would take this chance, she would make sure she never lost the light in front of her.

 

He’s so close, and Marinette traces the line of his nose, the curve of his jaw (a little rounder, a little softer), the shape of his lips, with her eyes.

 

 _They’d never even kissed_ , she thinks, and she can feel the red bloom on her cheeks (it would match her suit, and her suit! the familiar strength of it, the freedom, _Tikki_ , another wonder to marvel over later—). But later, later, later; there would be a later.

 

For now, there is Chat Noir. For now, there are his arms around her and the frantic beat of his heart against her palm. For now, there is the soft quiet as her sobs settle into hiccups and then into the puffs of air between them. For now, they breathe together.

 

It’s more than enough.

  
  
  
*  
  


**fin**


End file.
